Farm Work

J is in the daily grind of feeding livestock.  He has to buy grain twice a month for the show cattle.

We had some wind damage to the barn recently that he repaired yesterday.
V has been helping feed the 50 pound sacks of grain.
They then took a minute to admire the cattle.

Pruning

I'm afraid my camellia won't look like this this year.  The goats got into the yard and did some indiscriminate pruning.

My camellia now looks like this.
The seemed to enjoy the tips of my Virginia Sweetspire.
And they devoured every leaf off of 2 Hollies.
It is amazing the havoc 50 goat can wreck on a yard.

One Year Anniversary

I missed our 1 year anniversary of the blog yesterday.  I can't believe I've kept this up for that long.  We'll see how many subjects get repeated this next year, and if I can keep up with the same number of posts.

Happy anniversary from here at the ranch.

V and E returned from resurrection  this afternoon.  This is a Methodist youth retreat in Gatlinburg that has 14000 youth attend over 2 different weekends.  I think they had a good time but they are very tired. 

This has been E ever since dinner.  J is afraid she might drown taking a shower.

Sore Foot

One of our Hereford heifers had sore foot the other day.  We had to get her up to treat her.

The usual remedy is an injection of a long acting antibiotic.
As always, Emma tries to divert the heifers attention while J gives the shot.
J said the heifer is doing better now.

New Bull

Our new Hereford bull arrived today.  Actually, only part of him and it was frozen in liquid nitrogen.

One of the Hereford cows was in heat today, so we had the AI technician come bred her.  Emma is trying to help out as always.
Hopefully, in 9 months we'll get a calf that looks like it's father.

Freezing Rain

We woke up to freezing rain today.  The driveway was slick, the grass was slick and the main road was slick.

There was a wreck on the main road we passed on our way to church this morning.
There is some left over snow at J's dad's farm.  It's snowing here now.  We are not expecting the girls to have school tomorrow.

Cold

We are having a bit of an Arctic blast.  I didn't get up early enough to see the 1 degree. It was already up to 5.4 by the time I thought about blogging it.  At least now the ground is frozen so J can get around better.  He was even able to get the tractor started today.  There is no electricity at his dad's farm, so he can't plug that one in to warm up.

Congratulations to Charlotte R!  She scored her 1000th point in high school Varsity basketball tonight.  They stopped the game to present her the ball.  She then came up in the stands to give it to her mother.  Way to go Charlotte.

Winter Feeding

J has been having to feed for several weeks now.  At least this year he could raise or buy all of the hay he needed locally instead of having to get it out of New York.

The weather has been a little wet lately which has made for muddy conditions.

J is also getting ready to give a talk later this week at a big grazier meeting.  V has been helping him get his pictures together in a power-point slide presentation.

More Basketball

V played basketball tonight.  Her team won their second game of the season.

The score was tied with 20 seconds left.
They managed to throw the ball in and make a lay up.   It was a real nail biter.  V was a starter and played most of the game.

Basketball

E had her first basketball game Saturday.  Her team won 18-11.  She was a starter but didn't score any points.

She did have some rebounds and steals.
And was very aggressive on defense.
I think she is having a good time on this team.

Christmas Tree

The goats are eating the last of the Christmas Tree.  I threw some of the branches over the fence and they came running to devour them.

                                             

They had already eaten most of the tree.

I've saved a few branches to protect 10 Korean boxwoods I bought on clearance and need to decide what to do with.

Yard Ornaments

I am once again dreaming of working in the yard.  I received two new yard ornaments for Christmas I need to find places for.

One of J's Aunts made this stepping stone for us.

And Santa brought me this Hokie gnome.

Way to go Hokies on winning the Orange Bowl.

Sorting

Today we got the cattle up and sorted out the rest of the calves to wean.  Because we are calving later J left the smaller calves and replacement heifers on the cows longer.

He also used the opportunity to deworm the cows and calves.  He used the spray gun so we did  not have to run them through the chute.

In other news, I got a new computer.  C has helped me set it up, but it will take a lot of getting use to.